


Transference

by Nemonus



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, he isn't sure, or maybe Cayde's Ghost, socially awkward situations involving other people's Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 18:05:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12018189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemonus/pseuds/Nemonus
Summary: “So Andal did this too, huh? Understood the concealed mysteries of the Vanguard?” Cayde is inducted into the Vanguard and learns what makes the bonds between the trio so strong.





	Transference

“You should know what you’re getting into,” Ikora Rey had said, and Cayde-6 had crooked his jaw at her in acknowledgement of a Warlock’s many blind spots. If she knew him better, she would understand that he preferred not to know the details in cases that seemed like they might require some delicacy. He was better at improvisation. 

The first time he opened his eyes after a charge cycle and expected her Ghost instead of his, Ace spiraled up into the air with golden, contrite chirps following him like sparks. Cayde fumbled with wires, twisted thick cords out of sockets. Cursed and apologized in the same wrenching manner, ashamed and confused.

“I just got back from Ikora’s night watch,” Ace gentled.

Cayde sat back, shoulders slumped in relief. He had sat back like this after coming around that corner and finding that Fallen. “You … smell like her. Is this normal?”

“Something like that.”

“Weird.”

“It is normal, as far as I know of the Vanguard tradition. The Speaker told us the same thing, didn’t he? The Traveler is silent for both of us.”

Cayde shook his head and Ace his distal flanges in acknowledgement of the new and tragic feeling of this old silence. “Okay.” Cayde gestured for Ace to fly closer, and only saw by the casing color when the Ghost settled in his palm that it was Zavala’s.

* * *

 

Cayde called his Ghost Ace of Hearts. It had introduced itself as just the Ghost, emissary of the deity-machine on the horizon, and at that point in his newborn existence Cayde had begun to encode things even when he did not understand them. The Fallen and the Tower were equally mysterious to him, and so for a while he called them by more familiar names. He and the Ghost had formed the code and the names together, changing it a few times. They liked “Ace;” it was quick to say and quick to think, and supposed the sort of brotherly combativeness that opened many Guardian friendships. 

Ikora and her Ghost had also considered several different names, and discarded them all; references to past Warlocks felt sacrilegious, while references to works of fiction or poems felt impermanent. They returned time and time again to “Ghost,” which spoke to the purity and emptiness of the Traveler and took just the space of a breath. She recognized its signature in the Light as well, a spark that curled in on itself once before bouncing away like the two hands after the applause. 

Zavala’s Ghost’s name was Aurelius. It had had a long life to read old records. “Put an end once for all to this discussion of what a good man should be, and be one.”

* * *

 

“You should know what you’re getting into,” Ikora said.The three Vanguard walked side-by-side through Cormorant Way at night, after the shops had been closed and the smells of cooking food faded into the wet scent of the ivy. 

Cayde still felt newborn at times, but he had been inducted into the Vanguard, and that required ceremony. Taking the last, most dreadful dare was one of the only rites of Hunter passage that were not self-evident, and Cayde had … he had not been roped into it. He had agreed to the bet. “So Andal did this too, huh? Understood the concealed mysteries of the Vanguard?”

“He did,” Ikora said. She had that way of letting her voice drop away that left a long echo. In Andal’s -- and popular -- estimate she was a fury in the Crucible and a restrained whirlwind in the war room. Cayde had expected Andal’s estimate to be a bit off, touched by his own optimistic bend toward the nobility of teamwork; so far, it had proven entirely accurate. 

Cayde nodded, silenced by the name of his old friend. He had not expected the grief to stop his voice this far after the death itself. 

“Don’t expect torture,” Zavala said. “It’s safe.”

“What does that even mean?” Cayde slid aside from Zavala’s hand, turned so that he was walking backward, and spread his hands. “This is exactly the sort of thing that can be dangerous for us in the way that nothing else can. Good old Vanguard-style dare, and worst part about it? This is just the _beginning_ of all of us being …” He had been going to say _trapped in a room together._ “…Kept from our important strategic meetings.” 

Zavala and Ikora hummed in acknowledgment in harmony. Only Ikora curled her mouth in the slightest smile afterward. 

They were out of Cormorant Way then, into the blue-purple of the Speaker’s sanctum with the gyroscopic array shining gold against the navy glow of the Last City. Cayde turned, smoothed down his sleeve. Wouldn’t pay to walk backwards into this. 

The Speaker met them at the bottom of the stairs. “So the world turns this way again.”

“The world and the Traveler,” Ikora said gravely. 

Cayde watched the Speaker. Young Guardians dismissed him, counting him too impartial and distant from the day-to-day of the City to make much of a difference to their daily war, but Cayde had changed his mind several times about the Speaker and seen others do the same. That first impression of a masked anchorite had given way first to suspicion and then to an understanding, if not internalizing, of the kind of shrewd contemplation the Speaker espoused. In the Light, the Speaker was a nebula with its own pillars and forges. 

Ikora had told him, in a quiet and businesslike tone as if sending platoons out, what to expect. Cayde followed the Speaker without fidgeting as the Speaker took each of them by the arm and bid them to stand at intervals around the side of the gyroscope. 

“Everyone going to be okay?” Cayde muttered between the Speaker and Zavala. “Big moment.  Words of encouragement are a bit redundant, I guess, though?”

“Yes,” the Speaker said. 

Cayde hadn’t been expecting anyone to answer, and feigned a jump. As he settled he felt the sense of calm he had been told to expect. His shoulders relaxed, his lights dimming so that the color of the array and the sky seemed brighter and more softly textured in comparison. The Speaker’s ceramic mask tipped. 

“Welcome, Cayde-6,” the Speaker said. “The Traveler shines upon you.” There was no irony in his voice. After the quirked eyebrows he had gotten from the others at Andal’s voice after the tragedy had faded, Cayde had expected his reputation to reach as high as the Speaker. Maybe the lack of response indicated that the Traveler was ignorant of or did not regard such things. 

The Speaker ascended the stairs. Cayde looked at Ikora, standing with her arms at her side and her deadly hands stirring the air. Zavala with his arms crossed, his hands slack and his expression gentle. In just seconds Cayde felt the tug of the Light that he had expected, a tidal pull and a wind that stirred his cloak. For a moment he considered clutching it and thinking of Andal. Ace rose up in front of him, blue flanges spinning. 

“The others have done this before, Cayde,” Ace said. “They say it’s all right. We both heard.”

“I know.” 

“It’s not a matter of missing you. We’ll still be together.”

“Course we will. Takes two to open some of those locks.” He would be sure not to endanger any of his caches. Some secrets were best not shared. 

Ace rose toward the sky and Cayde resisted putting his hands up to guide it. 

The Light rose, even as the sky darkened. The Speaker pulled on the power of the Light from his place on the stairs, and the three Ghosts circled around the gyroscope, gathered blankets of Light like dust. She had been right, Cayde thought, over and over again. Ikora had understood, precisely and without feeling, what was going to happen. It was a comfortable sensation of letting-go, an utter lack of responsibility even while the universe arrayed itself into paths and lines he could follow. Hunt one lead and find another, or at least a dry cave and dry boots, and …

The Ghosts had switched places while he had been contemplating this comfortable independence. 

Ikora’s red Ghost hovered between Cayde’s raised hands. The loop of Light, a fishhook sigil, stood out as clear as a written name. Cayde’s Light mingled with the Light of _spiral-spark-sudden-trajectory-switch_ until he knew the tenor of the bond between the Ghost and Ikora. Warlock senses were strange and fluorescent-hot and he avoided the strangest of them, mindful of his own circuits. Cayde looked over at Ikora to find her turned away, her cloak flapping against her legs. She appeared different to him now, though, a bit older but also more energetic. Ikora and her Ghost sparked. The Ghost offered to Cayde a part of its name, a gentle curve as the slingshot energy stabbed outward. Then it floated forward, and silver-and-gold Aurelius took its place. 

Aurelius said _walls_ and _stone_ and _history_ , and then glided close enough to almost touch Cayde’s face and spoke of soft furnishings and silver paint. Remember when we played football with the children in the City, Aurelius said, and that was not one of Zavala’s memories alone; Cayde had been there as well, so it was easy to overlay Zavala’s history with his own and see the wary but deep regard Zavala held for the other man. Cayde felt armored, bulwarked with Titan-legacy, and wondered what the other two had learned about himself. 

The fear set in when Ace floated back to him.

At first, Cayde did not recognize the Ghost. The shell could have been any shell, and Light signature any new pair’s. The Light felt new. 

The realization staggered him. He reached out for the railing in front of the machinery of the gyroscope, grabbed once and missed and grabbed again and caught.  “Is this supposed to happen?”

“I don’t know,” said the Ghost. The voice was wheedling and faint. 

The sense of disconnect was sickening, as if Cayde had lost a limb but with no memory of the amputation. Ikora’s voice seemed to be coming from Ace’s shell.

“This is how it goes,” Ikora said. Cayde’s vision swam. Had he been looking at her all along? Was the Ghost between them? 

“You will be disoriented,” she said. “You will wonder when you are. You will be alright.” 

Cayde started moving hand-over-hand along the railing, driven by a dim effort to find the Speaker. Tethers of golden light bound him to the other Vanguard, pulling when he moved too far away. Where was he now? How far away? Which body did he inhabit? Were his feet touching the floor?

Zavala’s Ghost had raised him on a beach more times than one, his mouth full of water, and ever after he kept sweet candies because salt reminded him of the water 

Ikora had been raised far from the Tower, on an island of red sand and dry, thorny trees. She could not see the ocean from where she stood, holding a branch from which she had stripped the first handspan of thorns. 

Cayde-6 was one of a line of machines, Exos going back and back and each one unique. Cayde-6 was a stash of playing cards, secret because they were so common. Millions of people might have played games with these faces, but no one would know _that face_ —

This idea gradually extracted him from the spell of the Speaker’s gravity enough to look aside and see the Zavala and Ikora were looking at him. He thought that they must see … what? He discarded the vicious ego and lack-of-ego that in turn painted him as piratical and paranoid. He saw himself clearly for a moment, metal and mind and spine. 

He stopped trying to hand-over-hand toward the Speaker and instead hunkered down, his face almost touching the railing, and let the Light take him. Colors spun in spirals shaped like Ghosts up toward the top of the gyroscope, toward the dead Traveler.

“Is Andal in here?” His grip tightened on the railing. One hand slipped into a groove; he had warped the metal. “Do you remember him?”

As a courtesy or as part of a ritual attendance, Ace floated in front of him out of the whirlwind. 

“Let me show you,” Ace said sadly.

The Light impressed upon Cayde a sensation which might have been his own memory for how familiar it was; the quick snap of Andal’s Light, the smell that had faintly lingered on his armor. It was like walking into a familiar room.

The former Vanguard was still dead. Cayde had been holding out for some Vanguard secret, perhaps, some revelation that Andal had been rebuilt as a warmind, or that Cayde would be expected to wear Andal’s face through some magical transformation because all Vanguards since the organization of the Guardians had looked the same.

Except that the Guardians were just one social order, just the top of organized Light-use that had happened come into being after the dark times of the Iron Lords, and the Traveler had not gifted the Vanguard with any _exceptional_ immortality. 

So dead, so very silent, the Ghosts were also penitents reading from books in alphabets they did not know how to pronounce—

The Ghosts were also bastions, though, points of the memory of the Traveler scattered around the world. Cayde saw now how that memory could be exchanged, each Ghost’s individual allotment of Light spun out into a story that could be read by others. _Your Ghost will become part of our Ghosts_ , Ikora had said, and her words felt more specific and precise than Cayde had, at first, imagined. Packets of information were lodging in each Ghost, permanently and securely. What a system. The Traveler did roll dice, but it knew which faces would slap against the table —

Cayde let go of the railing and stood, swaying.

He was not sure how long the process lasted. The Light ceased to be a swirl of color around him and instead returned to the awareness with which he was more familiar, starlight in his thoughts and weapons in his hands. If he could have gone out to the field now he could have burned golden for _hours_ , or so it felt. The gyroscope was just another part of the Tower at night now, though. Like the ivy, it smelled faintly of dew.

Cayde turned toward the Speaker. Zavala smiled wide, and Ikora clasped her own hands. Cayde did not want to meet their eyes at once, but nor did he need to. The Ghosts had shared their histories and reduced any shame he might have felt. 

The Speaker descended the stairs with his usual measured pace, and Cayde did not find himself impatient. 

“It is done,” the Speaker said. “You may go, to contemplate or celebrate.” Was there a smile in the echoing voice? 

“Ah.” Cayde cleared his throat. His Ghost had drifted back to him, and he acknowledged it was quick, fond nod. “Do we switch back, or …”

The Speaker focused on him. “Your Ghosts will move with all three of you. They do tend to stay with their original partner, but if another Ghost befriends you, or whispers to you … it is best to heed their whispers.”

“It will help us make decisions with unity,” Zavala said. Cayde did not detect any lingering suspicion that the decisions had ever been otherwise; all three of the Vanguard were still living partially in the fog of warmth and connection the ceremony of the Ghosts had created. 

“You are now part of a tradition from the earliest days of the Vanguard,” Ikora said. Cayde nodded. This, then, was the unity of the Vanguard. As soul-baring went, it had been comfortable.

He had taken two steps under the balcony when he realized that Aurelius was at his shoulder, ducking close enough to nearly be caught under his cloak. With a dip of lazy recognition, the Ghost spiraled away as Ace returned to Cayde’s shoulder from Zavala’s cupped hands. 

The other two caught up with him at the entrance to Cormorant Way. Struck by a sudden need to control whatever conversation would come next, Cayde swung around the closed shutters of the hot ramen stand and pulled a stool from underneath a tarp. The legs scraped loudly in the quiet night. The other two looked around without startling. Ace swirled around the cart. Cayde double-checked the Ghost’s color and markings to make certain it was him. 

“Nothing surprises you guys, does it?” Cayde said. 

“I had a feeling you would have questions,” Ikora said gently.

“No. I just wanted to sit down.”

Zavala pulled out another chair next to him, scraping it less against the flagstones. “Let me tell you what I think this ceremony means.”

Cayde nodded gravely for a moment, still not entirely sure which room he was in despite the familiar landmarks. Then he realized what Zavala had said. “You don’t know? I mean, you’re not sure about it?”

“We have the same information that you do.” Zavala settled his hands on his knees.

“You gotta slouch a little here. It’s tradition.”

(No one had ever directly said that they were _all_ mourning Andal. No one had missed the silences, the clipped sentences where Ikora or Zavala might have referred to something which Andal understood and with which Cayde was not yet familiar. Andal had always stood so straight, moved with such grace.)

Ikora shifted silently to stand at Zavala’s other side, her purple cloak fading into the green shadows at the edges. 

Zavala conspicuously shifted his shoulders and hands in an awkward effort to slouch. “When I advise a Titan about tactics, the Ghost at my shoulder might be able to share Hunter strategies. When you teach young Guardians, your Ghost may offer some Titan caution.” 

“Caution? Are Titans known for that?”

“Warlocks aren’t.” Ikora shrugged, much more naturally than Zavala had.

Cayde waved a hand in acknowledgement.

“It’s just an example,” Zavala said patiently. “I believe that is why our Ghosts must be linked together in this way. It can become … confusing.” He glanced at Aurelius. 

“Tell me about it,” Cayde said. “But I get it.” He felt tired if he talked to people for too long, and the glow of Zavala’s eyes and Ikora’s bond was making that process happen fast. He had chosen familiar ground, though, and that made it easier. “Let’s do Vanguard stuff.” 

“Sleep, first.” Ikora yawned. 

“Weak.” Cayde hopped off the stool. If Ikora replied, he didn’t hear her words. He walked down the alley feeling almost normal. 

* * *

 

The first instance in which he really understood the transference of the Ghosts was the Oryx crisis. His students had surpassed him. A Hunter had gone out there in her own ship and destroyed the king of the overworld, while Cayde stood at this table. He could have brought his fist down on it. To be trapped here, while someone else explored new geometries, was infuriating. His own Ghost flung itself back and forth in carefully constrained lines, dashing itself against barriers built only by internal parameters. And Ikora’s _curve-snap_ came to him, saying _wisdom_ and _tomes_ and _your name will be inscribed in the records of the Light_ , and Cayde stilled his hands, and did not mistake the Ghost’s identity at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> (V. 2.0 Patch notes: Some references to Andal added, since jencforcarolina so brilliantly made me realize that he was the missing emotional center of this story. I very rarely edit stories once I've posted them, but this one has gone through ... three? revisions ...)


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